Left Behind
by Jalos
Summary: Francis, crippled by a tank attack, is left for dead as the group flees from the rampaging behemoth.  Armed with an indomitable will and unresolved feelings for Zoey, he attempts to catch up with them.  Oneshot, T for gore and language.  Francis x Zoey.


Blood. The coppery tang of it filled Francis's mouth, and he spat crimson onto the blacktop beneath him. His fingers dug into the hard, unforgiving surface, desperately searching for purchase on the gritty asphalt.

The others had left him behind. Left him for dead. Somehow, he knew they would. Neither Bill nor Louis had ever liked him that much, and he'd always been the outsider of the group.

His hand found a pothole in the road, his fingers digging into the road as he painfully hauled himself forward, his right leg dragging uselessly behind him and leaving a smear of blood on the asphalt.

_Goddamn tank, _he thought bitterly. The hulking monstrosity had come out of nowhere, smashing into the group like a train not fifty feet from the safe house they'd been headed towards. Francis had been the closest to it, and by sheer misfortune of proximity had earned the full onslaught of the tank's wrath. It had smashed his leg and probably a few ribs before charging off after his teammates, who had fled down a nearby street and disappeared from view several minutes ago.

Sure, he'd told them to leave him behind in situations like this. They'd all said it a hundred times. But Francis somehow thought that it would be like in the movies, where that one guy goes down and is yelling for his buddies to leave him behind, but they come back for him anyway.

They always came back for that one guy.

_But_, Francis reflected as he crawled slowly towards the sidewalk, clenching his teeth against the agony searing through his leg, _apparently not in real life. Not when it really matters._

But what really haunted him was the look in Zoey's eyes as she disappeared into the alley. She had cast one last glance at him, her beautiful green eyes swimming with fear, sorrow and guilt. That look was what kept him going, what drove him to catch up to them so he could dam that flood of emotion.

At last, he reached his quarry, fingers wrapping around the wooden haft of his fire axe, knocked from his hands when the tank slammed into him. Flipping the weapon around, he jammed it into the ground head-down, and put both hands on the wooden haft. The thick, toned muscles in his arms bunched and stood out as he strained, getting his good leg beneath him and hauling him to his feet.

He tried to put weight on his injured leg, and almost passed out. His teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw started aching. _I will not scream. I will __**not**__ scream._ His breath hitched, and his knuckled whitened on the haft of his axe.

After a few seconds, the searing pain died away, and Francis let out the breath he'd been holding. Walking wasn't an option, so he'd have to use the axe like a crutch. Looking up at the safe house ahead of him, seemingly miles away, he took a deep breath and started hobbling.

-O-

After a relative eternity, Francis slammed the safe house door behind him and slumped against the wall, head spinning, his bad leg throbbing. He closed his eyes for a minute, leaning his head back against the faded wallpaper. Opening his eyes, he caught sight of a few first-aid kits scattered about on a shelf on the other side of the room. Taking a few deep, calming breaths, he limped forward a few feet, then his good leg gave out and he collapsed forward, catching himself on the shelf and allowing himself a bellow of pain now that he was in relative safety.

Teeth gritted, Francis rolled over until he was sitting up, leaning against the shelf, and grabbed one of the first-aid kits. Opening the zipper, he rummaged through it, pulling out a few rolls of gauze, some disinfectant and a bottle of painkillers. Dry-swallowing double the normal dosage, Francis vainly wished for some whiskey and cast about for anything to use as a splint.

His eyes fell on his axe, and with a muttered "Sorry, babe," he picked up the weapon and snapped the haft across his good leg, just below the business end. Casting the detached head aside, Francis set the haft next to him and took an appraising look at his injured leg.

The tank had done a real number on it. His shin had been snapped right in the middle, his foot sticking out at an odd angle. The jagged end of the bone had poked through the skin of his leg, which was where all the blood was coming from. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to brace himself, then reached down and snapped the broken bone back into its proper place.

Slamming his free hand into the ground, Francis roared a litany of the worst curses and imprecations that he could think of, clenching his eyes shut against the stabbing, blinding pain. A fresh tide of blood welled up from the wounded leg, soaking through his jeans and pooling on the floor.

Blinking a few times to clear his head, Francis sprinkled some disinfectant onto the wound, which burned like hell and caused him to hiss through his teeth. Casting the bottle aside with a snarl, he reached down and, holding the axe haft against his shin, wound an entire roll of gauze around it to pin it to his leg and staunch the bleeding. Finally done, he leaned his head back against the shelf for a moment, closing his eyes.

He couldn't stay here. His companions had already gotten far enough ahead, and if he wanted to have any chance of catching them before they got on the helicopter and left him behind forever, he'd have to hoof it. They were headed for Mercy Hospital, he knew that much. How he was going to get there on his own, and with a broken leg no less, was beyond him. But he had to try.

Sitting there, all alone on the carpeted floor, his mind wandered, inevitably, to Zoey. Ever since he'd seen her, he'd been attracted to her. Sure he'd been, just like any red-blooded, straight male on the planet would have been.

But it had become more than that. After the first week, he'd started developing a crush on her. An awkward, schoolboy crush, although to call it that to his face would have earned a beating. He had never told her about it, because he was too goddamn mighty to admit any sort of feeling like that to anyone. But, sitting there on the cold floor, his leg throbbing and his chest aching, he swore to any gods that might be listening that if he ever caught up to her, he would rectify that.

-O-

Reaching out, Bill took a hold of Zoey's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Zoey, there was nothing we could do," he said, voice rough from his smoking habit. "This is what he would have wanted, anyway."

Zoey looked up at him, and it killed him to see the grief and guilt in her eyes, mixed into a lethal concoction that threatened to overflow those deep green pools. "But…" she whispered, her voice quavering, "We could have gone back for him… once the tank was dead. I could have intercepted that tank… should have seen it coming…"

"Hey!" Bill interrupted her, giving her shoulder a gentle shake. "Don't talk like that! This city is full of zombies, and in the condition he was in, Francis couldn't have lasted long. There was _nothing_ we could have done, Zoey! Don't blame yourself for what happened." After a long pause, he added, more quietly "And besides, Francis wouldn't want you to give up after we've come so far. We're almost to the subway, you have to pull yourself together and get through this. For his sake."

There was another long silence, then Zoey took a deep, shaky breath and nodded, reaching up to swipe at the glistening trails that ran down her cheeks. "Okay," she said, voice still shaking. "For his sake."

-O-

"Goddamn it," Francis snarled, racking the slide on the shotgun he'd picked up upon leaving the safe house. "I hate hunters."

Resting the smoking weapon on his shoulder, Francis started off at a limp down the alley, pausing only to spit on the hoodie-garbed corpse of the hunter he'd just killed. The hunched form of a zombie leaning against a nearby building caught his eye, and he leveled his shotgun and put a shell into its back. The buckshot tore through the unsuspecting infected, and blood splattered across the bricks behind it as it collapsed.

"Huh," Francis muttered, limping past and wincing imperceptibly every time he put weight on his crudely-bandaged leg. "I guess zombies ain't so tough after all." Looking up at the darkened sky, the horizon aglow from countless city lights - how the city still had power, Francis didn't know - he caught sight of the looming spire of Mercy Hospital, still depressingly far away.

"Shit!" he cursed, and was about to give a nearby discarded aluminum can a savage kick, but thought better of it. Pausing and leaning against a wall to give his wounded leg some rest, Francis pulled off his left glove, and withdrew a felt-tipped pen from his jeans pocket. He'd had it since the start of the infection, as he moonlighted as a tattoo artist and used it to sketch out new ideas on his own skin.

Finding a large bare spot on the back of his hand, Francis started deftly sliding the pen across his skin, leaving a black contrail in its wake. Swirling designs quickly appeared on his flesh instead of the skulls, flames and curvaceous women he usually drew, and in the middle of the intricate pattern he wrote the word 'ZOEY'. Chuckling at his own sentimentality, he capped and pocketed the pen, leaving his glove off and sticking it in his other pocket.

Pushing off the wall, Francis limped out of the alley onto a broader street, wincing inwardly at the gruesome car wreck that met his eyes. In the middle of the road, mashed together in a charred mass of twisted metal, were two delivery trucks. One was turned on its side, the blackened wreck still smoking.

Whistling softly in appreciation, Francis hobbled past, knocking a charging infected flat with another blast from his shotgun. Wishing again for a bottle of whiskey - he was so damn thirsty, and he'd had nothing to drink but collected rainwater for the past few days - he turned as the signature cough alerted him to the presence of a smoker.

His blood turned to ice as he swept the street with his eyes, seeing nothing other than the occasional abandoned car and a few wandering zombies. A smoker was his worst fear out here, other than a tank. Hunters he could knock out of the air, boomers he could shove away, but smokers… if he didn't see it before it saw him, he was almost certainly dead.

Then he felt the cold, slimy tongue snake around his chest from behind, yanking him off his feet. The shotgun fell from his hands from the impact, and a flash of pain sent stars exploding in his vision as his injured leg smacked into the ground. His left arm was pinned to his chest, and the slimy tongue coiled around his throat, crushing his windpipe.

As he was dragged backwards into the shadows, he saw in his mind's eye the only time he'd ever come close to expressing his feelings for Zoey. It had been four days ago, when they sat together on a rooftop in the rain. Their hands had brushed together, and Zoey had taken hold of his and given it a squeeze.

But he was Francis, and he was too damn badass to ever show emotion, so he had pulled away. The look in her eyes, a look of hope and kindness, was replaced by a hurt, stricken expression as the big biker turned away. And now he would never be able to tell her he was sorry, never be able to make her know that her feelings had been requited all along, and she would live her life without ever having that little hole in her heart repaired.

His jaw set, and his eyes narrowed as grief turned to rage in his gut. His hand shot to his hip, drawing the long hunting knife sheathed there as spots started to appear in his vision. Straining up and around as he was dragged across the sidewalk, Francis slashed blindly at the tongue that held him, hitting his target on the third swing. The knife bit through the slimy muscle, and Francis tore the loose tongue from around his throat, greedily gulping in air.

Fighting through the throbbing pain in his leg and the splitting headache as blood rushed to his brain, Francis stood up unsteadily as the smoker turned to flee. He hesitated a moment, unsure of whether he would be able to catch it with his bad leg. Then he pulled back his arm and threw his knife with a battle cry.

The six-inch blade hit home with a wet 'thunk', skewering the smoker through the back. Jerking backwards, the lanky zombie emitted a choking, rasping cry as it convulsed one last time before toppling forward to land face-down on the asphalt. It didn't move again.

-O-

Zoey lay on the floor of the saferoom, hands pillowed behind her head, staring up at the ceiling tiles. Their journey through the subway tunnels had been relatively uneventful, and now they were holed up in an old pawn shop. Bill stood watch and Louis dozed in his sleeping bag nearby, but Zoey couldn't sleep. The loss of Francis still haunted her, and the gripping sense that she could have, _should_ have done something, _anything_ to help him instead of just leaving him for zombies to feast on.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she rolled over onto her side, curling up to try and conserve warmth in the cold room. She and Francis had never really been in a relationship, she supposed. He was always too aloof, too mighty to let himself feel anything. But she had seen it in his eyes. She knew that he had felt the same way she had, somewhere beneath that cold, hard exterior.

But now she would never be able to hold him, never feel those big, muscular arms wrap around her, never taste his lips or fall asleep cuddled against him. Closing her eyes for a moment, she berated herself on being so sentimental. _This is the zombie apocalypse, girl. Of course people are going to die. Get it together or you'll be next!_

Running a hand over her face, Zoey grimly forced all thoughts of Francis down into the deepest, darkest corners of her mind. She would have time to grieve for him later, but right now she needed to focus on one thing and one thing only - survival.

-O-

Francis tasted blood, his head snapping around from the force of the blow. He staggered backwards, hitting something soft with his leather-garbed back. Turning to look, he discovered it to be another zombie, which quickly latched on to his shoulders and reached for his neck with its slavering jaws.

Delivering a punch to the face of the zombie clinging to his back which dislodged it and knocked it to the floor, Francis gave the zombie that had punched him a point-blank round from his shotgun that blew its head into bloody shards. Turning, he followed up with a shotgun blast to the zombie he had knocked prone. With a satisfied grunt, he spat the blood from his mouth, then wiped his lips on the back of his hand.

Looking up, he saw the pillar of concrete and glass looming above him, the green letters proclaiming 'MERCY' atop it glowing like signal beacons. It was so close, but just out of reach. The damn street was closed off by a military blockade, and in his state it would be impossible to climb. Spitting a vile combination of particularly juicy curses, he cast around for any possible way around. His eye fell on a nearby bar, and his lips twisted into a sardonic smile. There might be a back exit in there, and even if there wasn't, he could snag some whiskey. Or, if they didn't have any whiskey, some beer at least. Nodding to himself, he set off once more.

The bar had apparently been ransacked, with stools smashed, tables overturned and refrigerators torn open. Beer, blood and bile mixed in hideous, kaleidoscopic pools on the wood floorboards, which Francis carefully stepped around as he limped behind the bar.

He would have let out a whoop of delight had he not been worried about attracting zombies. Whoever had gone through the place hadn't been quite thorough enough, for tucked back in the corner of a cupboard was a single, solitary bottle of Jack Daniels.

Reaching in, Francis hefted the bottle like a precious, fragile artifact, then gave it a quick kiss before popping the cork and draining half the bottle. Belching loudly, he grinned to himself and wiped his mouth on his arm. Whiskey in one hand, shotgun in the other, he set off as fast as his wounded leg would take him to look for a rear exit.

-O-

"Hospital should be through here!" Louis said, pointing down the open manhole. Zoey shivered, looking down at the sewage-filled tunnel that awaited them. "Oh, wonderful," she muttered, took a deep breath, and jumped.

Her shoes sunk a few inches into the carpet of filth, and Zoey gagged, doing her best not to breathe. Stepping up onto the concrete walkways that bordered the tunnel, she was about to lean against the wall when she noticed that the concrete was glistening with moisture - of what variety she would rather not think about - so decided against it. "Who's idea was this?" she muttered, trying not to think about the stuff coating her shoes.

Bill and Louis followed her down, the former looking stricken at the mess on his dress shoes and slacks, the latter simply looking gruff and mildly annoyed. "Come on," the old 'Nam vet said, starting off at a trot down the tunnel. "That evac helicopter ain't gonna wait around forever."

After a moment to collect her courage, Zoey followed behind him, her shoes squelching with each step. There were only a few zombies down here, city maintenance workers or ex-survivors who had chosen to take refuge in the sewer system, believing it to be safer than the streets above. These they picked off with relative ease, and the group paused to reload their weapons and catch their breath.

"We need to look for a manhole," Bill said, and Louis nodded vigorously. "Got that right," he said, grimacing at his shoes. "The sooner we get out of here, the better!"

Zoey emphatically shared the sentiment, but said only "Are the manholes marked? We want one as close to the hospital as possible."

Louis looked thoughtful for a moment, then his eyes brightened and he said "Yeah! I took an urban planning course in college, just for fun, and they touched on sewer construction. If I remember correctly, all the manholes are marked. They have to be, so that sewer workers know where to climb up to get out in the right place."

Bill nodded authoritatively, and said "Alright then. All we have to do is find the right manhole, and we're home free!" Looking around, he pointed down the sewer tunnel in what appeared to be a random direction, and said "Okay people, time to get the hell out of Dodge."

-O-

"Finally!" Francis growled, and threw his shoulder against the locked exit door, smashing it open and eliciting a flare of pain in his injured leg. Hissing curses under his breath, Francis hobbled forward a few steps, then looked up, right into the face of a witch.

Backpedaling frantically, Francis caught his foot on a loose sidewalk tile and pitched over backwards, landing hard and sliding for a few feet. The motion and noise galvanized the witch into action, and she charged forward with a banshee scream, the huge daggers that were her fingers splayed, ready to shred and tear.

"Shitshitshitshitshit!" Francis yelled, crawling backwards on his elbows and bringing his shotgun up. The witch was upon him in a matter of seconds, huge talons poised to strike.

Francis was faster - barely. His shotgun boomed like thunder, and flame exploded from its muzzle as it discharged its lethal payload. The buckshot caught the witch square in the face, and at a distance of less than five feet, the effects were enough to make even Francis's gut turn.

Shoving the grotesque corpse off of him, Francis painfully hauled himself to his feet, looking up to see only a parking lot and a street separating him from the emergency entrance to Mercy Hospital. Turning, he caught sight of his prized whiskey bottle lying shattered on the ground, the spreading pool of chestnut liquid laced with a hundred glittering shards.

Snarling the vilest epithet he could think of, Francis gave the witch's corpse another round from his shotgun for good measure, nearby zombies be damned. Stepping over the now-mangled form, he started off at a fast limp across the parking lot, a rush of adrenaline at being this close to his target lending speed to his steps.

The entrance was choked with corpses, and Francis stumbled more than once while making his way through the bloody, tangled mat of dead flesh and torn clothes. Clambering painfully over the reception desk, he stumbled through the door and into the makeshift saferoom behind it.

-O-

As Zoey climbed the last few rungs of the ladder, clinging desperately to the slick metal, she felt the patter of rain on her face. Normally, she disliked rain, but now she welcomed it. Hopefully it would wash some of the grime from her clothing. Pulling herself up through the manhole, she looked around through the rain. They had come up in the road outside the emergency entrance to Mercy, and Zoey's eyes narrowed in puzzlement as she caught sight of a mangled witch corpse and shattered bottle leaking golden liquid nearby.

"Huh," she said, as Louis hauled himself up onto the street behind her. "Check this out." Louis followed her gaze, and whistled in appreciation. "Looks like we ain't the only survivors here," he said, then walked over and crouched down by the bottle. "Jack Daniels," he said, looking up. "Not some cheap knockoff shit either."

Bill took a different tack, walking over and prodding the witch corpse with the toe of his boot. "Shotgun blast," he said, turning to the rest of the group. "Up-close, too. Tore the bitch apart."

Zoey's eyes widened. Francis had always talked lovingly about Jack Daniels, and he surely loved shotguns… _No, _she thought firmly, shaking her head to dispel these illusions. He couldn't possibly be alive, after what he'd been through.

"Well, we can't stand around here all day," Bill said, starting off at a jog towards the hospital. "Let's get inside before more infected show up."

Heartily endorsing this plan, Zoey took off after him, eager to get inside and get cleaned up. Please, please, please let them have running water in there. Even a sink, just so she could wash her clothes off.

Stumbling over the mat of corpses that filled the entryway, Zoey stopped as if pole-axed as she noticed the closed saferoom door ahead of them, and heard the sounds coming out of it. It was faint and muffled, but there was definitely someone in there, hissing a variety of juicy oaths that would have made her mother turn in her grave to hear.

Bill walked up and rapped on the door. "Son," he called through the metal barrier, "There's some fellow survivors out here! We're headed to the evac, we're tired, we're hungry, and there's zombies everywhere!"

Louis pitched in. "Hey man, be a brother and open up, will you?"

There was a long, long pause, so long that Zoey thought that whoever it was in there might not have heard them. Then she heard heavy, uneven footfalls drawing closer to the door, as if whoever it was in there was limping. Then, suddenly enough to make Zoey gasp involuntarily, the door flew open.

Standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame as nonchalantly as if he'd been welcoming dinner guests to his house and there weren't bloodthirsty monsters everywhere, was none other than Francis. Positively beaming as he looked the group over, he said "Well, you three took your sweet time gettin' here."

For the longest time, no one said anything. Finally, Bill broke the silence. "Holy shit…" he breathed, eyes wide. Francis's grin widened.

Then Louis laughed. "Ha! Bro, I knew no zombies were gonna keep you down!" Stepping forward, he enveloped the biker in a bear hug. Francis's face went tight with pain, and he muttered "Louis, I love you too and all, but please let go. You're not doin' much for my broken ribs."

Stepping back hastily, his eyes sparkling and a grin spreading across his features, Louis held up his hands in a gesture of apology.

Then Francis's gaze landed on Zoey, and he pushed off the doorframe. Shoving past Bill and Louis, he took two long, limping strides toward her and wrapped his thick, powerful arms around her torso. Hoisting her up into the air, he elicited a startled squeak from her, which he quickly silenced as his lips melted onto hers.

As shocked as she was, she quickly got used to the idea, twining her arms and legs around him - careful to avoid his ribs - and clinging to him like he was the only safe port in a storm. Her mind was reeling, and for all she knew this could be a dream, but she wasn't complaining.

After a long, blissful moment that neither one of them wanted to end, Zoey broke the kiss, pulling away with tears of joy welling up in her eyes. She had so many things she wanted to say, so many confessions to make, so many thoughts and feelings boiling inside her skull, that she didn't know what to say first. All that came out of her mouth, however, was "You do know I've just been strolling through a sewer, right?"

Francis laughed, and his grin returned. "Babe," he whispered, pulling her in close enough that she could feel his hot breath tickling her cheek, sending electricity tingling through her flesh. "Do you really think I care right now?"

He didn't expect an answer, and she didn't provide one. Flipping her around so he was holding her bridal-style, Francis took one step towards the saferoom… and his injured leg folded under him with a terrifying _SNAP!_

-O-

Francis's mind, clouded by euphoria and lust, exploded with agony as the splint proved unable to support the added weight and his broken leg, having not been given _nearly_ enough time to set, gave out under him. His face became acquainted with the carpet, and apparently the two became fast friends, as he felt no desire to move from this position any time soon. His brain was addled with pain and fatigue, his lack of sleep catching up with him as the sudden onslaught of pain burst the mental damns he'd set up to keep his exhaustion at bay.

He felt hands on him, turning him over, shaking him. Zoey's face appeared in his vision, worry etched in every line. She was saying something, and he fought through the agony and fatigue that dulled his senses, willing himself to focus.

"Francis!" She was practically screaming by now, and he blinked a few times to bring her into focus. "I'm… okay," he croaked, although it was a blatant lie and he knew it. Bill, kneeling by his leg, hissed in his breath in worry and said "Son, I don't know whether to be in awe of your tenacity for making it this far on that leg, or your stupidity for not setting it better. If you'd done this without us here to help you, you could have done permanent, irrevocable damage to it, and it would more than likely have to be amputated."

Francis swallowed, feeling Zoey clutch at his hand. He squeezed back with enough force to nearly crush her delicate fingers, but Bill added "Fortunately, we _are_ here to help, so I think we'll be able to fix it. Zoey, if you'll help me?"

Zoey nodded emphatically, and the two of them lifted Francis into the air, grunting with the effort of it. After almost thirty-six hours on his own, fighting through pain and weariness, battling every inch of the way against the undead hordes, he allowed himself to be carried into the saferoom like a sack of potatoes. He may have been too goddamn mighty to admit to having a crush on someone, but he certainly was not going to turn down help in this situation. He just hoped that the others would understand.

Although, as long as Zoey was with him, he really didn't care anymore.


End file.
